Yesterday, there was a little justice in Media World for a notorious journalist who is well known to conservatives for sharing selectively-edited clips of Republicans and putting interpretations on them that are, to put it charitably, highly inaccurate.

Vox.com’s Aaron Rupar is one of the left-wing website’s more prominent tweeters, frequently posting video snippets from President Trump’s speeches, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s press briefings, etc. in which he takes what they say out of context.

What’s especially bad about the way Rupar operates is that his bogus descriptions of what’s said in the clips are often retweeted uncritically by mainstream media journalists and Democratic politicians alike, who don’t bother to actually watch the videos or ask about context.

This is how fake news often spreads and goes viral. I’ve documented several instances here of Rupar getting away with this cheap, dishonest tactic. But on Monday, Rupar posted a video and interpretation of a Trump quote that was so mangled and deceitful that even CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale took time out of his 24-7 Trump-bashing to call him out:

Warning: one of the tweets below contains adult content (coarse language)

For people retweeting without watching the full clip: this quote was not a Trump corruption admission. It was him being defensive about Biden outraising him – saying he COULD easily raise tons of money if he wanted to call up CEOs and make corrupt bargains, but he won’t do that. pic.twitter.com/DhtwSyIjVC

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 19, 2020

Imagine being @atrupar and fucking up a Tweet so bad, that not only did he delete it, but that @ddale8 of @CNN actually had to accurately fact check it. https://t.co/mmelehWnT6

— Ordy Packard's A-mish Torch & Pitchfork Emporium (@OrdyPackard) October 20, 2020

Dale posted several, other tweets critical of what he called Rupar’s “misleading” tweet, and the blowback against Rupar got so bad that he did something he never does: delete the tweet and post an explainer:

Deleted this because the quote reads too much like something Trump actually said to Exxon when he was talking about a hypothetical. I thought the “I’ll use a company” line nodded to that context, but it’s apparent folks are interpreting in a more literal way. That’s on me. pic.twitter.com/75AVU5veQW

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 20, 2020

The problem with Rupar’s mea culpa here is that he waited to pull down the fake news quote until it had almost 5 million views. And a big reason why it had nearly that many views is because it had been amplified by several, equally-dishonest Democratic politicians, including AOC and Ted Lieu:

Members of Congress spreading this misinformation pic.twitter.com/5LXzOkhi3g

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 20, 2020

Not surprisingly, disgraced former CBS News anchor Dan Rather got in on the act, too, which helped Rupar’s lie about what Trump said spread:

I will just let the man speak for himself. Maybe someone can ask Amy Coney Barrett about the legality of this. https://t.co/cARmxFiZqg

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) October 19, 2020

Even Exxon Mobil felt the need to post a tweet clarifying matters:

We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO…and just so we’re all clear, it never happened.

— ExxonMobil (@exxonmobil) October 19, 2020

Should Dale and Rupar get props here for eventually doing the right thing by, respectively, fact-checking the tweet and taking it down? Nope, for reasons I explained here:

Now do the same thing with the hundreds of other video tweets you've falsely interpreted and gotten other members of the press to uncritically RT, Aaron. https://t.co/cfzdg7o715

— Sister Toldjah, VP of BS Detection 😁 (@sistertoldjah) October 20, 2020

Your fellow journalists at CNN and elsewhere RT other misleading/false tweets from Aaron every day. You don't get a cookie for only calling him out once per 500 instances, Daniel. https://t.co/ax1dhAaxrv

— Sister Toldjah, VP of BS Detection 😁 (@sistertoldjah) October 20, 2020

Bad?

Aaron Rupar is one of the most dishonest “journalists” in the country. And that’s already a pretty tight contest.

He lied. On purpose. To accomplish exactly what you’re seeing here. https://t.co/ocTndvwxRQ

— RBe (@RBPundit) October 20, 2020

This tweet describes Aaron Rupar’s tweet, but also describes Aaron Rupar’s entire journalistic career https://t.co/j7HWljCBoz

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 20, 2020

Rupar isn’t an idiot. He’s one of the most dishonest accounts on this website but he isn’t an idiot. He knows exactly what he did. https://t.co/AI3BagYZud

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 20, 2020

That’s Aaron Rupar’s entire schtick. Deliberately lie about what a clip shows knowing his idiot followers won’t actually watch the clip. https://t.co/1dQn9a1vJz

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) October 19, 2020

Rupar will continue to do stuff like this because he’s learned he can get away with it and score a lot of RTs and high-fives in the process. But his credibility amongst supposedly “respectable” journalists took a bit of a ding yesterday, which is a small, baby step towards getting more people to finally start watching the videos he posts — and finding out the context BEFORE sharing them far and wide.

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